But apparently I’m completely wrong about this. Turns out that tattoos on women aren’t a symbol of female agency; they’re a sign that the, er, merchandise has already been sold. To some sort of evil wizard.

That’s the thesis, in any case, of this random dude on the Braincels subreddit, home to Reddit’s increasingly restless “involuntary” celibates.

Well, that makes sense. But wbat about men with tattooes? Sadly, Mr. Concerned-father2 offers no guidance on this subject, so I guess we’ll never know.

We Hunted the Mammoth is independent and ad-free, and relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!

I have three of them. And it’s funny because this is the exact opposite. So i’m gonna tell the story, slight trigger warning for those because it evolves my sexual assault.

When I was assaulted he left a couple scars on my body that haven’t healed and to me they felt like a brand on my body of it belonging to him and I couldn’t stand that. He took bite out of the inside of my thigh and then on my right side. When I was dealing with it all I started cutting myself and it left a lot of scars on my arms so I covered those scars with a meaningful tattoo and then two pretty ones on my side and inside of my thigh. It was my way of reclaiming my body as my own. Also I didn’t have to look at myself and be reminded what happened to me.

I also have a cute story about my tattoos and one of the little girls I teach to ballet to if anyone is interested in hearing it.

– What if the tattoo artist is a woman?
– If a man gets a tattoo from a female tattoo artist does that mean they are being marked as a slave as well?
– What happens if someone gets tattoos from multiple artists? Do the artist have some secrete black magic tattoo battle for control of their slave?
– Does being in the incel community make these people stupid?

– What if the tattoo artist is a woman?
– If a man gets a tattoo from a female tattoo artist does that mean they are being marked as a slave as well?
– What happens if someone gets tattoos from multiple artists? Do the artist have some secrete black magic tattoo battle for control of their slave?
– Does being in the incel community make these people stupid?

I only know the answer to the last question, and that answer is yes.

To answer your questions

-Yes
-Yes
-Please help my incel brain is melting. How does one do anything with multiple people and not sitting in a basement alone?
-Obvously

Well, some ancient Romans did tattoo their slaves as a mark of ownership, and several nazi concentration camps did tattoo the prison numbers onto the arms of prisoners, so tattoos can and have been used as a mark of shame and ownership.

With that said, there are tons of examples of tattoos being just about the opposite. Tribal societies use them as a mark of passage, people like rock-stars and bikers use them as a sign of rebellion against The Man, sailors have used them as a form of mementos of people or places they’ve visited and Ötzi the ice mummy apparently tattooed himself as an attempt to cure rheumatism.

I wonder what would happen if this incel guy were to walk up to a burly gym-bro to tell him the tribal tattoos on his biceps are a sign of submissiveness…

The stupid is strong with this one… Points for the creativity of not falling into the usual “chicks with tats are ugly” I guess? Maybe?

I currently have 7, and a few more to come. Only one of them was made by a dude, an then repainted by a different dude. After that I made the conscious choice to only get my ink done by women/nobinaries and most of them were feminist on top of that. Best decision ever.

The last one I did on my left arm and is still healing, it still needs color and I just C A N T wait.

Years ago I learned to not trust any man who says he hates tattoos on women. I saw some guy say something to the effect of, “Tattoos on women are so awful! It’s like scribbling all over a beautiful canvas!” Just say how you want to control women to look for your boner, pal. The same is true for guys who hate piercings on women.

I’m too much of a wimp to get real tattoos. But what about temporary tattoos or henna? Can I temporarily belong to a printing company or to a henna artist and ward off the incels that way? Inquiring minds need to know.

If so, I may need to start carrying around a little sheet of temporary tattoos in my purse for emergencies.

This is getting really desperate… FINE, you don’t like tattoos on women! Taste is taste! Now stop showing us how religions began in the bronze age and accept that your preferences is not a reflection of some supernatural truth. You’re just a prick!

Years ago I learned to not trust any man who says he hates tattoos on women. I saw some guy say something to the effect of, “Tattoos on women are so awful! It’s like scribbling all over a beautiful canvas!” Just say how you want to control women to look for your boner, pal. The same is true for guys who hate piercings on women.

Oddly enough, this dosn’t just go for women looking too “wild” but also for women looking too conservative as well. You can get just as much shame for being deemed frumpy or told you look sick because you don’t use a bunch of “natural” makeup.

Personally, I always keep my hair tied up because it’s long and I’d hate it hindering me or getting in my face, yet I regularly get people asking me to let it down for the sake of them wanting to see it displayed.

Personally, I always keep my hair tied up because it’s long and I’d hate it hindering me or getting in my face, yet I regularly get people asking me to let it down for the sake of them wanting to see it displayed.

So I have five tattoos, done by four people. How much of me does each artist get? Do the newer tattoos supercede the older tattoos? Does size matter? If I brought the design to the artist is it less binding than a design the artist created? One of my tattoos is the red vw microbus from Alice’s Restaurant – does that give Volkswagen a claim on me, or just Arlo Guthrie?

My purchase of a tattoo on my birthday last year is one of the boldest statements of self-ownership I have ever made. I grew up in a subculture where tattooing was absolutely forbidden* because “your body is a temple to God.” Silly analogy, if you ask me–what kind of temple doesn’t have any artwork? It took me a long time to grow from “Tattoos are sinful and horrible” to “tattoos are trashy” to “tattoos can be sort of okay” to “some tattoos are amazing, but I would never get one” to “I wish I were brave enough to get one” to “I’d get one if I knew what picture I wanted” to “I KNOW WHAT PICTURE I WANT.”

(It’s a bee stylized in Celtic knotwork, btw)

* The old white dude in charge had a tat, but that was “different” because “he was in the Navy.” Of course.

You might think, it’s not even misogyny, it’s lunacy. “Women shouldn’t get tattoos, but men can” is misogyny. “Women who get tattoos are owned by the tattoo artist” is insanity.

But in fact it is mostly misogyny. The assumption is the tattoo artist is male (which most are). Note that *men* who get tattoos are not made slaves. It is *only* women who can be magically made slaves by men.

The sort of thinking that goes into this gives me a headache. And if this is at all true, I belong to, in order:
A stoner kid who’s name I can’t remember from high school
An apprentice at my neighborhood tattoo parlor
Freddie Corbin, the owner of that neighborhood tattoo parlor who did a design outside his normal comfort range for me because I always popped in to say hi to them to make them feel welcome when the shop opened up in the neighborhood, so when I decided to get my circuits done (I grew up steeped in cyberpunk as the future I didn’t want, but saw coming towards me) I went to him.

As I finally got my long thought about tattoo three weeks ago (and I love it!), this post feels very personal right now.

But their thinking does feel internally contradictory. Women shouldn’t get a tattoo because it marks them as property of the artist. But they already believe women are the property of men, so why would indicating it be a problem? Oh wait, I know, it’s because women are the property of all men, so the artists are stockpiling women for their own nefarious reasons. Presumably that’s where the black magic comes in. And of course when incels think “all men”, they don’t actually mean the dictionary definition. They mean them. Cucks, betas, soyboys; there are an astonishing number of men they don’t include in the category of “all men”.

Oh for pity’s sake.

@Lainy

Thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry that happened to you. You are an inspiration for how you’ve recovered and reclaimed your body and its beauty as your own. *Applause*

Oh my God, if you don’t mind me barging into your conversation, I looooove spin pins! I wear a French twist maybe one day out of three, and it takes like two minutes, and I am terrible at hair. So great. Seconding that recommendation.

I did not know about spin pins actually! that looks really helpful. See my mama has short hair so she didn’t really know a lot of styles to put it up with. She didn’t have a lot to teach me about hair or make up because she didn’t wear or do much with either. Which is fine, I don’t mind. That was good for me because I think it helped me not have the same insecurity about my face like it did other girls when I was growing up. Nothing wrong with makeup. But I just knew a lot of girls that would actually feel bad about themselves if they left the house without makeup on like there was something wrong about their face as it is.

Anyways so I was taught how to put it up by another dancer who used this tool called perfect bun. I recommended it to anyone that has trouble because it makes it so easy for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJJvQzJdgWY

@Weatherwax

Thank you for saying that. I find it easier to talk about some things because it helps a lot of people when I do. I have a flower on my arm near my wrist for my grandma, who I looked up to and loved very much. I’ve got a blue and black butter fly on my side that I drew myself. It’s got two little circles on the wing with a dime and penny on either side which is something special for me and mama, and it says unbreakable will in tiny letters under it. Then on my thigh it’s a little rose and says Matthew 5:30, which is a bible passage that helped me a lot as I dealt with the healing process.
“and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee. That one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

I took that to mean ( since it is a sins to get tattoos but hey a lot of things are sins.) that since my scars are causing me such pain and that’s leading me down a path of distress and causing me to do other horrible things to myself. Like cutting myself, self medicating with drugs and alcohol. Which in turn was hurting the people that love me so much, it’s better to take steps to get ride of them then it is to just deal with. And I’m sorry about the long comment I just wanted to talk about it.

I’ve been wanting two specific tattoos for years, but because of reasons, I probably won’t ever be getting them.

It makes me sad, because I was also raised in the ‘tattoos are for bikers and criminals!’ culture, and the ‘but what will you think when you are old and wrinkled?’

It took a long time to work through that, but I’ve decided that my skin is my skin, I can do with it what I will. I get scars from little cuts, and no one minds, why can’t I get something that I actually want?

Also, when I’m old, I’ll be wrinkly all over. Society tells me that by that point I’ll be useless, so I might as well have some cool stories to talk about.

I don’t see me ever being a person who would choose flash off of the wall (but maybe, who knows). I think I’m too afraid of not liking the end result to do that. I need to think about something for a long time. Then, even if ‘the reason I got it’ isn’t true any more, it will be a reminder of who I was at the time.

(this might also be something where I’m going “YEAH I’D TOTALLY DO THAT!!!” and then the reason stopping me is removed and I’m suddenly less sure hahaha. Oh dear.)

Donate to the Mammoth!

We Hunted the Mammoth is an ad-free, reader-supported publication written and published by longtime journalist David Futrelle, who has been tracking, dissecting, and mocking the growing misogynistic backlash since 2010, exposing the hateful ideologies of Men’s Rights Activists, incels, alt-rightists and many others.

We depend on support from people like you. Please consider a donation or a monthly pledge by clicking below! there's no need for a PayPal account.

Send comments, questions, and tips for stories to me at dfutrelle@gmail.com, or by clicking here